"8 Million Strong and Voting!" Small business is the heart beat of the United States economy. This blog searches for issues and answers to helping small business survive and thrive in California and the United States.

Monday, April 19, 2010

SB 900/AB 1771 and Governor's Conference for Small Business

I just found out that Senator Alquist has introduced legislation to create a Health Insurance Exchange. This would be housed in the California Health and Human Services Agency. The Exchange will be governed by a board with gubernatorial and legislative appointments and would meet at least once every two months. We are tracking this legislation closely.

It is critical that small business have representatives on this board. Small Business California will be pushing hard to make this happen.

We are getting close to the Governor's Conference for small business. Please see below information. If you have not done so already please register for this event.

There has been added a session on the new health bill from Washington. I will be speaking at this event on this issue.

Assemblyman Tony Mendoza has introduced AB 1771 which would allow small businesses to bid on goods and services for state agencies currently provided by prisoners. The sale of prison goods and services is a $230 million dollar industry.

Small Business California has been quoted in numerous media outlets supporting this legislation.Even though the Prison Industry Authority has considerable advantages such as lower labor cost and lower overhead we are only asking that small businesses be given the opportunity to bid on these contracts and the low bidder should be awarded the contract.

In these difficult economic times where small businesses are struggling to survive this does not seem unreasonable. Also the state may be able to save some money.

It is interesting to note that 30% of the prisoners or about 2000 are lifers.

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Small Business California is a proactive, non-partisan business advocate whose only agenda is the well being of California’s 3.2 million small businesses. Working for all small businesses for a better business environment, SB-Cal is responsive to the needs of small business owners.
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